Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, called medical experts “tone deaf” as he accused them of turning a blind eye to the long-term health consequences of extending the national shutdown to control the spread of the coronavirus, The New York Times reported on Monday. “It’s disappointing that so many of the medical experts and pundits pontificating in the press appear tone deaf to the very significant losses of life and blows to American families that may result from an extended economic shutdown,” Navarro told the Times. “Instead, they piously preen on their soap boxes speaking only half of the medical truth without reference or regard for the other half of the equation, which is the very real mortal dangers associated with the closure of the economy for an extended period.” 

Navarro made headlines last week when the Times reported that he wrote a memo to the White House in late January, warning that the coronavirus could become a “full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.” The memo came at a time when Trump was actively playing down the threat of the coronavirus.